


Regret

by ElizaMatt



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, M/M, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, One Shot, Regret, Short & Sweet, Words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 05:36:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18631885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElizaMatt/pseuds/ElizaMatt
Summary: After Eliot turned down Q’s wish for a relationship.





	Regret

**Author's Note:**

> This occurs just after A Life in the Day. It is very wordy fluff and mainly written to self-medicate myself after that ending.

**Q**

So…it wasn’t that he was gay. More gay-ish or gay-affiliated which absolutely made sense when he thought up the word. Nothing had changed. At all. And he wasn’t in love with Eliot, so he hadn’t been slighted. At all. He loved Eliot as a friend loves another friend, but he wasn’t _in love_ because that would imply he could somehow fall out of love with him, and…oh god. Quentin pressed his face down into his mattress, but eventually had to breathe. Which he did. He simply had a lifetime of sudden and very intimate memories, memories of warmth and tenderness and belonging….and yes, sex. He was sure those memories would begin to fade. Any day now.

 

**E**

Eliot used minute precision in mixing drinks and calculating the right amount of alcohol to maintain emotional equilibrium before he returned to bed. One drink lay the foundation to the safe place named “not thinking.” Two drinks were necessary because it would be cruel to leave one little drink alone in his body. Three drinks. Well, when could he ever refuse an invitation to a three some? Four drinks made all the difference, banishing the annoying, whispering “what ifs?” and making them go poof. Because tying yourself to someone who was mostly straight and a bit bi-curious meant getting your heart broken when another Peach Girl showed up. And Eliot wasn’t in the market for a new heart. Not yet.

 

**Q**

Quentin had breakfast before anyone else to avoid the embarrassing moment he had to lock eyes with Eliot again. That didn’t stop manic and highly obsessive thoughts to pop up in is brain. In fact, he just birthed a new one. Would Eliot have accepted a relationship if Quentin had been someone else? Someone more handsome or interesting? Just look how quickly he had accepted Mike into his life. Perhaps the problem was Quentin himself? Perhaps something was wrong with him? Thinking back at their life in the cabin, it was…it had been…well to him it had been heaven, but…had Eliot been bored? Quentin stopped stabbing his defenseless scrambled eggs with his fork and stared ahead, into all those warm memories that suddenly seemed rather chilled. Had it been a nightmare for Eliot? Had he…he had hinted that none of them was like that. What was “that?” Conventional? What if he had bored Eliot for over a lifetime, torturing him with his nerdy neediness, and finally Eliot escaped by dying. That could explain why he wouldn’t want it back. Had said no. _Stupid, stupid, stupid._ The scrambled eggs spilled over the plate. Had he seen a flicker of panic in Eliot’s eyes? Quentin suddenly, desperately needed to breath into a paper bag.

 

**E**

He had a marvelous life. No, make that _fabulous_. He had Margo, his trophy wife without all the pesky demands for heterosexual sex.  He had countless male lovers one speed dial away. He also had all the High King business to sort out later, but honestly, he didn’t have the energy now. Better not kill his buzz.

Eliot lay naked on his silk sheets, blowing smoke up towards the canopy. Quentin was…Q was too squirrelly. Not that he hadn’t appreciated all that nervous energy in certain parts of their menage-aux-deux, but…look at him. He caressed his naked stomach. Look at Eliot Waugh. A peacock among sparrows, always creating pandemonium even if he didn’t want to. (He always wanted to.) And look at Quentin. Not creating pandemonium. Ever. He was average really, wasn’t he? With his floppy hair and his floppy personality. A floppy bunny. Eliot lit another almost-cigarette with the leftover butt and breathed out smoke, creating an exquisite ring. And peacocks didn’t partner up with floppy bunnies, no matter how much they lo…cared for them. All his life people had expected him to be average, and he had fought them every step of the way. He didn’t do average. Let Q play horny foxes with Alice all he liked, he didn’t care. Eliot was above all these ridiculous average feelings. He blew out another smoke ring and cursed when it formed itself into a perfect heart.

 

**Q**

Quentin had finished breakfast and returned to his room. He sat down on the bed and looked over at Penny’s empty side. If you used logic, then he and Eliot had nothing in common. Except over 50 years of being together every day, laughing, arguing, touching. But apparently, it meant nothing in a world where there were options. He fell back on the bed and placed his hand over his heart, felt it beat through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. He didn’t blame him. Why would anyone want an average magic student with nerdiness oozing from every pore? Julia never did. Alice had enough after a brief affair and then had the perfect excuse when she found him in bed with…

 _Let’s take a turn down a different memory lane_ , he said to himself. A little more self-hatred should snuff out the memories of Margo, him and Eliot…he swallowed and moved restlessly. Eliot had indicated it all happened at the mosaic because they were almost the only people there. Thrust together by necessity. _You are not like that_. What had he meant, really? Gay? Q blushed but knew he hadn’t just gravitated towards Eliot because he was the only warm body there. No matter how many men were in the same room, all he saw was Eliot…Did he just think “men?” He blinked.

 

**E**

He didn’t need a soulmate. Hell, Margo was his soulmate, in a non-sexual, glamorous and fantastic way. Unfortunately, his soulmate had become obsessed with a pasty-faced party-magician and had decided to hump the life out of him, so that left a little too much time to brood. No, _think._ Brooding belonged to walking atomic bombs like Penny. Eliot was a dancer on life’s eternal stage, always too high above the crowd’s greasy fingers. Not like Penny and Kady whose soap opera dramas used to keep everyone awake at night.

Eliot embraced a silk cushion where the words _Fierce as Fuck_ were embroidered in glitter thread. A little present from Margo to cheer him up. He closed his eyes, and an image of their bed filled his mind. Quentin used to lie with his head on his chest when darkness fell over the mosaic. Eliot used to comb his long fingers through his hair. It was so soft. Soft and floppy. He opened his eyes and forced the memories away. Instead he chose the icy logic that kept feelings at bay.

Disregarding Teddy’s mother, they had been two lonely men in their prime with healthy sexual appetites. Young men think about sex a hundred times a day, they say, though Eliot personally thought that the number was a little low. It was inevitable that they had reached out for each other. It didn’t mean anything. It was just like in prison or what his fantasy imagined muscular men in prison did to each other to pass the time. Sex. Fifty years of having sex had created the illusion that they were made for each other, so naturally sex with someone else would break the spell.

 

**E**

It didn’t.

 

**Q**

Perhaps he was too short. Or too hairy. But Eliot’s other boyfriends had met that criteria so that couldn’t be what made him repulsive to Eliot. What was wrong with him? Was it his interests? His mind? His mental issues? The fact that he couldn’t help overthinking every little issue until it sent him to a mental health clinic?

 

**E**

If he agreed to Q’s suggestion, he would get his heart broken. Say it again. _Never_ get involved with an almost straight guy. They always run back to their safe place nestled in the heterosexual arms of a woman. If his feelings for Alice wouldn’t flare up, it would be Julia or any other woman when the thrill of a gay affair had evaporated. Just see how he jumped at the chance of squeezing Peach Girl’s fruit.

 

**Q**

Had it all been for nothing? Would Eliot have done it with anyone? If Lunk had been the one to drop by instead of his girlfriend, had been giving Eliot big cow eyes, would Q have been dumped by Eliot? Quentin suddenly felt cold. Had Eliot been jealous for 50 years?

 

**E**

And then he had been sidelined for years while Q was running after Peach Girl. Not that Eliot hadn’t liked her, he had, but…a three-way marriage really should have been more fun. He felt…When Quentin had been mooning over her, Eliot had always gone away to drink or later play with Teddy. Somehow, he couldn’t breathe when Q looked at her a certain way. He had never looked at him like that. Except once. In the throne room.

 

**M**

It wasn’t that Margo had great psychic abilities, but Josh was sleeping next to her, exhausted, and she realized her connection with Eliot kept her from sleeping. Because all those dopey stream-of-conscious obsessive-compulsive shitty feelings about Quentin weren’t fucking hers! Normally, when she read his mind, it was pleasant because they had the same interests: Sex and drinks. Now she was going crazy listening to:

_Is Q gay? Is Q straight? Should I have taken his offer? I don’t love him, I love him, I want him, does he want me?_

And worst: A Hallmark movie playing in her head of E and Quentin plus some tart raising a child together. Okay, pause the film. Lunk looked mighty interesting, but…fate really had to step in or the musings of a lovesick Eliot would make her a killer. Again.

 

It just happened. When Quentin blinked, he realized that someone had merged their bedrooms so his bed, or the shadow image of it, had fused together with Eliot’s. He turned his head slowly and saw him inches away, naked, sleeping, clutching a pink pillow with a smile on his lips.

 _Oh my god, he’ll think it’s me!_ he panicked. Quentin turned on his back and looked up at Eliot’s four poster monstrosity of a Victorian bed. It was huge and soft, and he had a distant memory that it was fairly bouncy. He blushed and decided to leave, but before he could inch away, Eliot opened his eyes.

“Er” Quentin said eloquently and Eliot answered softly,

“Margo. It takes a lot of erotic magic to fuse two beds together.” He smiled when Quentin blushed again from the word “erotic.”

“I forgot how easily you blush,” Eliot said dreamily and crept closer. “Forgot so many things.” He reached out his hand, drew him in, and before Quentin could make up his mind to form a sentence, Eliot’s mouth covered his. Q moaned into the kiss eagerly, wanting this, and almost protested when the kiss broke. Eliot looked at him and said softly,

“There. There is that look.” Then he pulled him back into his arms.


End file.
